It is safe to say that COVID-19 has re­shaped the men­tal and phys­i­cal con­tours of our lives and since that is the case then we as a so­ci­ety must weigh the cur­rent po­si­tion and do an eval­u­a­tion of where we are head­ing.

This change in life did not come unan­nounced but with pri­or no­tice and how we are deal­ing with its pres­ence is still to be known.

A par­tic­u­lar area that is caus­ing a bit of con­cern is how vi­su­al­ly im­paired or blind per­sons are deal­ing with the adap­ta­tions that are now in full swing.

One might have thought that as­sist­ing a blind per­son to cross the street was some­thing which was con­sid­ered no­ble.

How­ev­er, with the virus it be­comes dif­fi­cult to per­form such kind acts so I hope that good sense would pre­vail and mer­cy will reach out and touch the hearts of those who are not in­clined to lend a help­ing hand.

So­cial dis­tanc­ing does not mean you should avoid as­sist­ing a blind per­son in any way pos­si­ble.

At times a mor­bid feel­ing dri­ves a wheel of de­pres­sion deep in­to the path of hu­man un­der­stand­ing. If the blind and the vi­su­al­ly im­paired have to com­ply with the wash­ing of hands, wear­ing masks and so­cial dis­tanc­ing, how fea­si­ble would it be for these folks to cope with the in­struc­tions giv­en to pro­tect them from this po­tent virus.

As we look in­to the prob­lems fac­ing blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired per­sons, it be­comes ur­gent for the ones in charge to move swift­ly to avoid a pos­si­ble calami­ty.

Some amend­ments must be made to en­sure as­sis­tance for these folks but the pub­lic must be the first in line to help. With the un­der­stand­ing of their dis­po­si­tion, on­ly unadul­ter­at­ed help will solve or re­duce the up­com­ing ob­sta­cles.

Let us vi­su­alise some of the dai­ly prob­lems that can oc­cur: Just imag­ine these folks go­ing to the bank, gro­cery, any pub­lic buld­ing, or even just cross­ing the street, can a blind or vi­su­al­ly im­paired per­son cope on their own in these places while fol­low­ing all pub­lic health pro­to­cols? The short an­swer is no.

Now what are the al­ter­na­tives that can be put in place for these folks to func­tion? On­ly from a hu­man per­spec­tive can one en­vis­age what the out­come could be.

My hum­ble sug­ges­tion is, if a blind or vi­su­al­ly im­paired per­son needs as­sis­tance in a pub­lic space, once you are both masked and have ac­cess to hand sani­tis­er or hand wash­ing fa­cil­i­ties, you should def­i­nite­ly do all with­in your pow­er to help. The main so­lu­tion re­mains hu­man kind­ness and that stems from god­li­ness.

A key fac­tor that has al­ways stalled progress with­in the el­der­ly com­mu­ni­ty is the lack of col­lab­o­ra­tion. If on­ly these folks can come to­geth­er and unite as one, what a pow­er­ful move­ment would emerge.

The mem­bers of the blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired com­mu­ni­ty must, and I over-em­pha­sise the im­por­tance of the word must, come forth and ex­press their con­cerns, it is of no use if a scat­tered ap­proach is adopt­ed. That will on­ly pro­duce un­sat­is­fac­to­ry re­sults.

With the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic rav­aging through­out so­ci­ety, it must be hav­ing a dev­as­tat­ing ef­fect on these folks. What is cer­tain is if the vi­su­al­ly im­paired and the blind stay at home as much as pos­si­ble and on­ly ven­ture out when it is nec­es­sary, the num­ber of COVID-19 cas­es with­in the com­mu­ni­ty will re­main low.

How­ev­er, if and when these folks have to leave their homes to at­tend to some­thing of im­por­tance it will be use­ful to have some­one trust­wor­thy to ac­com­pa­ny them.

There is a prob­lem that strikes to the heart of the trust is­sue. If there is a lack of trust it be­comes dif­fi­cult for som eone to open up.

A blind or vi­su­al­ly im­paired per­son is de­pen­dent on who­ev­er mov­ing about with them so to those who as­sume this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, please do so with mer­cy in mind.

I once heard from a blind per­son: your hands are your eyes. I found that state­ment to be rather per­ti­nent and rel­e­vant. I am hop­ing that with the pas­sage of time the is­sue of pay­ing at­ten­tion to these folks will be­come an area of great im­por­tance,

COVID-19 has placed a num­ber of blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired per­sons un­der se­ri­ous re­stric­tions. This virus is se­ri­ous and must be tak­en with all the pre­cau­tions pos­si­ble.

Kind and com­pas­sion­ate ac­tions must be a so­lu­tion as it per­tains to these folks. If our so­ci­ety can pro­duce a pos­i­tive at­ti­tude to­wards the blind and vi­su­al­ly im­paired then a great per­cent­age of neg­a­tiv­i­ty will van­ish.

Please re­mem­ber the old say­ing that you nev­er know, at a mo­ment’s no­tice any­one can be­come dis­abled.

Life is un­pre­dictable so it is im­per­a­tive that we as a so­ci­ety pay close at­ten­tion to how we op­er­ate. Keep in mind that mer­cy is a tool that bal­ances the fab­ric of our fu­ture. Avoid de­spair, come to­geth­er and work with each oth­er. Re­mem­ber good­ness heals the hu­man­i­ty in you.

Wash your hands, wear your mask and please keep your so­cial dis­tance.